Sunday, October 24, 2004

The President and The Pope

The Pope is visiting Washington DC. and President Bush takes him out for an afternoon on the Potomac river. Sailing on the Presidential Yacht, the Sequoia. They're admiring the sights when, all of a sudden, the Pope's hat blows off his head, and out into the water. Secret service guys start to launch a boat, but President Bush waves them off, saying "Wait, wait, I'll take care of this. Don't worry."

Bush then steps off the yacht, onto the surface of the water, and walks out to the Holy Father's little hat. He bends over and picks it up, then walks back to the yacht and climbs aboard. He hands the hat to the Pope, amid stunned silence.

The next morning, the liberal newspapers all carry the story, with front page photos of the event.

Friday, October 22, 2004

The Magic of Botox

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

If Architects Had To Work Like Web Designers...

Dear Mr. Architect:

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don't have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year. Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.

Please don't bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet.

However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers. Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor's house he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can't happen very often. Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I've given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can't handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case..

Phone Home...

A woman was at home with her children when the telephone rang. In going to answer it, she tripped on a rug, grabbed for something to hold on to and seized the telephone table. It fell over with a crash, jarring the receiver off the hook.

As it fell, it hit the family dog, which leaped up, howling and barking. The woman's three-year-old son, startled by this noise, broke into loud screams. The woman mumbled some colorful words. She finally managed to pick up the receiver and lift it to her ear, just in time to hear her husband's voice on the other end say, "Nobody's said hello yet, but it certainly sounds like I have the right number."

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

A blonde named Pam is appearing on "Who Wants To Be Millionaire" with Regis Philbin.

Regis: "Pam, you're up to $500,000 with one lifeline left: phone a friend. If you get it right, the next question is worth one million dollars. If you get it wrong, you drop back to $32,000. Are you ready?"

Pam: "Yes."

Regis: "Which of the following birds does not build its own nest? Is it A) robin, B) sparrow, C) cuckoo, or D) thrush."

Pam: "I'd like to phone a friend. I'd like to call Carol."

Carol (also a blonde) answers the phone: "Hello?"

Regis: "Hello Carol, it's Regis Philbin from Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I have your friend Pam here who needs your help to answer the one million dollar question. The next voice you hear will be Pam's..."

Pam: "Carol, which of the following birds does not build it's own nest? Is it A) robin, B) sparrow, C) cuckoo, or D) thrush."

Carol: "Oh, Pam. That's simple. It's a cuckoo."

Pa m: "Are you sure?"

Carol: "I'm sure."

Regis: "Pam, you heard Carol. Do you keep the $500,000 or play for the million?" Pam: "I want to play; I'll go with C) cuckoo."

Regis: "Is that your final answer?"

Pam: "Yes."

Regis: "Are you confident?"

Pam: "Yes; I think Carol's pretty smart."

Regis: "You said C) cuckoo, and you're right! Congratulations, you have just won one million dollars!"

To celebrate, Pam flies Carol to New York. That night they go out on the town. As they're celebrating, Pam looks at Carol and asks herr, "Tell me, how did you know that it was the cuckoo that does not build its own nest?"

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Cowboy Story

A cowboy was herding his cattle in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?" The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?" The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant." says the cowboy.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy."You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked; and you don't know anything about my business.........

The Miracle of Toilet Paper

Fresh from my shower, I stand in front of the mirror, complaining to my husband that my breasts are too small.

Instead of characteristically telling me it's not so, he uncharacteristically comes up with a suggestion: "If you want your breasts to grow, then every day take a piece of toilet paper and rub it between your breasts for a few seconds.

Willing to try anything, I fetch a piece of toilet paper and I stand in front of the mirror, rubbing it between my breasts. "How long will this take?" I ask.

"They will grow larger over a period of years," he replies. I stop.

"Do you really think rubbing a piece of toilet paper between my breasts every day will make them larger over the years?

Without missing a beat he says, "Worked for your butt, didn't it?"

He's still alive, and with a great deal of physical therapy, he may even walk again.